The Most Important Piece of Luggage
by Saucie
Summary: I am a useless bit of baggage. A slightly ... alive ... piece of baggage, perhaps, but a piece of baggage nonetheless. Although ... I wish ... but no. I am not important. And not wanted. And not needed. I'm just a bit of baggage. (Pippin's PoV)


THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF LUGGAGE.  
  
A/N: I know it's Merry who thinks this exact line in the book (when he's riding with Eowyn/Dernhelm to the aid of Gondor) but Pippin thinks stuff to that effect, too … so I juggled their thoughts and their lines around a bit … but hey, what's it called fan fiction for?  
  
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I am a worthless piece of baggage.  
  
Yes, go on and laugh. Think of me as a depressed, self-centered little thing, who can only think of people ignoring him when the world is about to end. I'm not joking. The world is about to end.  
  
And I am a worthless piece of baggage.  
  
I've always been overlooked. I have three older sisters, and everyone knows them. Who am I? That little boy who was with them. What was his name? Er, I don't know … something beginning with 'p', like the rest of the girls, perhaps?  
  
If you don't want to believe that, don't. But I seriously heard a friend of my father's asking his wife that. Of course, my father didn't help. I remember how he used to introduce us: "My children, Pearl, Pimpernel, Pervinca, and – uh – Pippin." The pause was because he was wondering whether to use my nickname or my real name, but it always sounded like he couldn't remember his own son's name.  
  
Fine, don't believe that either. Why should you? I mean, I'm a Took, can possibly be the next Took – if they don't make my idiotic Took cousins the heads of the household – and the only boy out of four children … and I'm unwanted. My mother never wanted to have me, my father never really cared. My sisters spent their lives giggling along with each other, and always kicked me away. And I only had one friend.  
  
And that was Merry. He was my first cousin, and a good eight years older than me, and also a Brandybuck. But he was the only one who ever acted like he wanted me around. And so I stuck to him, and through him I got to know Frodo Baggins, and Sam Gamgee, and Gandalf the Wizard – who I already knew, kind of; he had been a good friend of the Old Took, and kept an eye on the upcoming generation of Tooks.  
  
But that didn't stop me from being the least wanted piece of baggage in the household.  
  
So I left. You might wonder how I could just leave so easily, but … it's not like anyone really cared. Tooks had this … habit … of disappearing suddenly, though it was frowned upon nowadays. But Frodo and Sam were going, and Merry and I were quite ready to tag along. I think Merry knew the risks, but I definitely didn't.  
  
But we all stuck together, through thick and thin, fire and ice, war and peace … or, Frodo and Sam stuck together, and so did Merry and I. Or, maybe that's not correct either. Frodo and Sam did stick together, all the time, but not Merry and me. We tried, but … hey, we were just a bit of luggage. Luggage doesn't all have to stay together. It can be thrown around and sent wherever you want it to go.  
  
And so here I was, seated in front of Gandalf, feeling more than ever like a bit of unwanted garbage that has been picked up in case it causes any harm. Shadowfax ran smoothly, but I felt as if I was bouncing along, a bit of mane the only thing keeping me in my seat. Just like a piece of baggage would.  
  
And as I jolted up and down, I thought of the only way I could make myself noticed. By giving in to temptations I say I can't help – but which I actually can. I could have stopped myself, maybe, from throwing stones in that well in Moria, but I didn't. Why? Because maybe that way they'd see me. I wouldn't be just another hobbit.  
  
And further back, at that inn at Bree. It was quite possible that I could have kept my head and not spoken about Baggins back then, but I didn't. Because then Frodo would see me. Then I wouldn't be just another hobbit with them.  
  
And then, what had happened just now. With the palantir. I know it's unlikely, but maybe – just maybe – I could have stopped myself from touching it, from looking into it, from giving them all away … or almost doing that, anyway. But no. I let myself give in to the urge because then they'd all see me. I wouldn't be … just another hobbit.  
  
I twisted around, trying to rub my bruised backside. I was cold, and unhappy, and hated myself to the core of my being at that point, and could also well understand why, right now, I was unwanted. How could you want someone who was nothing but a hindrance to your quest? You had to protect them, and drag them along, and make concessions for them, and to top it all they were doing their best to get you all killed.  
  
Yes, I definitely was a worthless piece of baggage.  
  
"Fool of a Took!" muttered Gandalf from behind me. I winced. He couldn't have known what I was thinking, could he? I felt a long-fingered hand come around on my left and straighten me, hooking his legs with my feet, so that I wouldn't bounce up and down with the horse's movements. "Getting yourself hurt for no reason at all."  
  
I blinked, clutching the silvery mane of the horse tightly, and then realizing I didn't need it. "I was all right, Gandalf," I said in a slightly high voice. "You don't need to make yourself uncomfortable."  
  
I heard him snort loudly behind me. "And if you fall off, eh? I won't be made uncomfortable then, will I? Sometimes I think you Tooks have no brains whatsoever – never did and never will."  
  
"It doesn't matter if a bit of luggage falls off," I murmured under my breath, still holding Shadowfax's mane and looking down at the silvery hair slipping through my fingers.  
  
For a minute I truly believed that Gandalf hadn't heard, and I was glad and yet disappointed, and then suddenly I felt myself lifted up and placed gently onto the horse once more, with Gandalf's staff in my hands. I stared at it, surprised, and heard him say, "Now, if that bit of luggage fell off, it would be the end of a bit of power. If the bit of luggage holding that bit of luggage fell off … that would be the end of hope. I would say that something that holds 'hope' is a very important piece of luggage."  
  
I turned around to look at him, but his face was impassive, overshadowed by his hat. But his staff was still in my hands, and he showed no sign of reclaiming it.  
  
He trusted me with it.  
  
He had trusted me with it in Moria, too.  
  
Whatever I had done, he had trusted me still.  
  
I looked down at the gnarled wood, unpolished and rough. There were a million things it could do. But … it couldn't hope. It could give someone else hope, if they knew what it could do, but it couldn't hope itself. It was a piece of luggage.  
  
And I … I could hope, and I could give people hope. I didn't have power, like the staff, but I had hope – hope for myself, and for everyone else.  
  
I was a very important piece of luggage.  
  
And suddenly I noticed that the horse was moving smoothly beneath me, and my feet were not even hooked with Gandalf's legs. Why? Because I wasn't just an important piece of luggage.  
  
I was a hobbit.  
  
I was a Took.  
  
And I had hope.  
  
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A/N: Um … what I had to say I said in the beginning, so … I ought to get on with the disclaimer, I guess …  
  
Disclaimer: All his sisters' names are from the Appendix, okay? Nobody else belongs to me, of course, but those don't either … and I'm assuming they're sisters, because … they have to be sisters! They've got girl names! (Er, I think). 


End file.
